


Glory Days

by julie_slamdrews



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Backstory, Boarding School, F/F, Roommates, gay witches in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:23:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie_slamdrews/pseuds/julie_slamdrews
Summary: “Is this your roommate, Pip?” One of the girls asked. Her eyes swept over Hecate again and she grimaced. “Can’t you request a transfer?”Or how Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle went from reluctant roommates, to best friends, to enemies...and beyond?





	1. A New Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the whole of the new Worst Witch series last weekend and I am a sucker for a good angsty backstory and a badass with a repressed gooey centre so...here we are?

To say that Hecate and Pippa got off to a bad start would be putting it mildly.

  
Hecate had longed for real school through the tedious years of homeschooling, for the chance to hone her talents and to pitch her wits against the other students. She hadn’t anticipated the problems those students might present.

  
Those problems were brought into sharp focus when she pushed open the door to her new room to find a gaggle of pretty young witches crowded onto the other bed. They were without exception blonde, petite and beautiful, with bright ribbons in their silken hair. As she entered, their chatter stopped and six sets of eyes regarded her scathingly.

  
“Is this your roommate, Pip?” One of the girls asked. Her eyes swept over Hecate again and she grimaced. “Can’t you request a transfer?”

  
“Merlin’s beard!” Another exclaimed, eyeing Hecate’s sash. “How did she get to be Head of Third Year? She didn’t even attend this school last year!”

  
“I believe,” Hecate said coolly, dropping her trunk beside her bed, “that these things are awarded on merit.”

  
And with that she swept from the room.

  
She wasn’t here to make friends anyway, she reminded herself as she sat alone at dinner that night. She was here to learn. Friends would only be a distraction.

  
***

  
She survived the next few weeks by throwing herself into her studies, ignoring her classmates unless ordered to work with them and closing her ears to the unpleasant whispers which seemed to tail her. She spoke to her father weekly by mirror to update him on her progress and found herself missing his particular brand of cruelty, which now felt more like strictness. But then nothing could match the cruelty of teenage girls.

  
Things came to a head in the fourth week of term when she put on her sash to find that it been altered to proclaim her status as ‘Head Bitch of Third Year’. To make matters worse, she was completely unable to remember the reversal spell and a frantic search in the library before class was no help.

  
“Hecate Hardbroom,” Miss Bindweed exclaimed as she slunk into potions class ten minutes after the bell. “Late and underdressed! What is the meaning of this?”

  
Hecate’s hand went to the defaced sash in her bag but even as her fingers closed around it she knew she couldn’t admit the truth.

  
“I overslept, Miss Bindweed, and I forgot my sash in my rush to get here,” she said. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.

  
A ripple of laughter echoed around the room as she took her place but she kept her head high and a slight contemptuous smile on her lips.

  
She made it through the whole day without so much as a flinch, despite the continued giggles and murmurs of “HB”. It was only back in her room, safe in the knowledge that Pippa would be at hockey practice for at least an hour, that she gave in and let herself sob, silently but fiercely.

  
Of course, this being that kind of day, Pippa chose that moment to barrel into the room with her usual exuberance. She froze in the doorway, a guilty expression on her face.

  
“Oh,” she said simply. “Sorry, I forgot my stick.”

  
“I was practicing anti-allergy charms,” Hecate said quickly. “Seems I haven’t quite got the hang of them.”

  
Pippa shifted from foot to foot, chewing her bottom lip. “I didn’t realise they were going to do that,” she said finally. “I thought they were just going to hide it. Just like you hid my glass unicorn collection in the wastepaper basket.”

  
“You’re late for practice,” was all Hecate said. Her usually watertight control on her emotions was slipping again and she wanted Pippa gone.

  
Pippa sighed and picked up her stick, knocking a book onto the floor in the process.

  
"Will you...?" Hecate shouted at her departing form, before letting out a sigh of her own and bending to retrieve the book. To her surprise she found it open to the very reversal spell she had been searching for all day.

  
The next day a bag plunked down in the perpetually empty seat beside her. She looked up to find Pippa grinning hopefully at her.

  
"I hear your vanishing potion is the best in the class," she said. "Care to teach me your tricks?"

  
And though a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered that this was a trap, Hecate couldn't help the tentative smile quirking at the corner of her mouth.


	2. Potions Class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone - I haven't written anything in a long time so am really glad people are enjoying this! I rewrote this chapter quite a few times as I was struggling with Pippa's voice, I hope you like it!

Pippa had attempted to be kind to Hecate in the beginning, she told herself. But the two girls were simply too different and, as is so often the case, difference had led to hatred. 

The truth was a little more complicated. 

She had made fleeting attempts at friendship in the first day or two, it was true, but these had not extended farther than a smile or an enquiry as to the length of her flight. Hecate had been polite but cold, and Pippa, unused to having to work to make people like her, had been hurt. 

This hurt had made it easy for her to convince herself that she hated her roommate, and that the other girl deserved the taunts about her big nose, unwieldy limbs and frosty demeanour. She could have been friends with them if she wanted, she had simply made no effort. 

(It had been more convenient, in those first few weeks, to forget their first meeting. That did not fit so easily into Pippa’s narrative.) 

The day that Jasmine had picked up Hecate’s sash, Pippa had been angry. Her roommate had insisted that morning that Pippa clear more space for her on the shelf for her stupid spell books, even though Pippa had far more belongings. She had not known exactly what Jasmine was going to do, but she had known that it would be cruel. She just hadn’t expected Hecate to care. 

It wasn’t when she saw the other girl’s tear-streaked face that she first felt guilty. It was earlier, when Hecate entered Miss Bindweed’s classroom, just a touch more flushed than usual, and refused to tell the teacher why she was late. She had to have had at least an idea who was responsible, could have got them all a thousand lines, but she chose to stay silent. It was then that Pippa realised that Hecate was a better person than she had allowed herself to believe. 

She had also realised that not being actively cruel was not the same as being kind. 

She wouldn’t have blamed Hecate for shunning her when she took the seat beside her in Potions. She almost wanted her to, to restore equilibrium, to allow her to return to her old behaviour without guilt. 

And yet, that small hopeful smile opened something within her, made her all the more certain that this was the right thing to do. 

That day, as it turned out, was free potion practice. This was usually taken as an opportunity to goof off and sure enough she heard Sybil and Jasmine behind her selecting the easiest level one potion from the book. 

Hecate caught her glancing in their direction. 

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” she said coolly, flicking towards the very back of the book, where the level fifteen potions resided. There was more than a hint of challenge in her words and the sardonic tilt of her jaw. Pippa seized it. 

“How about the shrinking spell?” She suggested. 

It was more fun than she’d expected, pushing herself to master the challenging new potion. The instructions were more cryptic than those for the simpler potions, but the girls puzzled them out together. 

Finally the potion glowed green and emitted a scent of caramel, just as the book had promised. 

“We did it!” Pippa cheered, grinning from ear to ear. Hecate eyed her in amusement. 

“I believe we need to test it first,” she said, though she returned Pippa’s grin with a slight upwards quirk of her lips. 

“I think she should try it on her nose,” came a mocking voice from behind them, and a moment later the reply: “I doubt anything could shrink that!”

For the first time, Pippa was close enough to see the brief flash of hurt in Hecate’s eyes before she schooled her features back into careful indifference. And then the cauldron had somehow upended itself onto Sybil and Jasmine. 

It took her three lunchtimes to finish the lines Miss Bindweed set her, but it was worth it for the real, unguarded smile that spread across Hecate’s face.


End file.
